INAUGURAL EXHIBITION: “THE COLLECTION” Curated by C.R. Stecyk III

GRAND OPENING: “THE COLLECTION”
GREGORIO ESCALANTE GALLERY IN CHINATOWN
Juxtapoz Magazine co-founder throws his hat in the ring,
next-door to some of LA’s freshest gallery spaces.

Juxtapoz Magazine co-founder Greg Escalante is pleased to announce the grand opening of his newest venture in a densely varied career in the art world, Chinatown’s brand new Gregorio Escalante Gallery. For it’s opening show,
Escalante will share a selection of work from his coveted private collection, including pieces by
Robert Williams, Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari, Shepard Fairey and more. The highlight of the show may be the space itself, one taking Escalante’s vision for an Angeleno future and physically applying it to a cultured space in Chinatown. Flanked by the renowned Coagula Curatorial and Charlie James galleries and contributing a completely new entry point aesthetically to the already bubbling Chung King row of art happenings, Escalante has taken over the raw and beautiful Red Pipe Gallery to breathe into it fresh, new life. And on September 5th, Escalante and co-curator Craig Stecyk invite us into the space for the first time with the debut exhibit “The Collection.”

He has completely gutted the location and inspired a transformation that seems to have expanded the size of the location itself. Escalante has built a mezzanine overlooking the main exhibit floor for headlining shows, with a library featuring the many publications and art books that have furthered his influence on the lowbrow-highbrow world, and a brand new basement which has become a project room for artists to invite patrons into their experiential endeavors. Assisting in overseeing the project and co-curating Escalante’s foray into the LA gallery world is UK creative consultant and artist agent Charlie Jane, and co-curating September’s opening is artist Craig Stecyk. On the blank side of the gallery, Gregorio Escalante Gallery features a large mural wall, one that Stecyk will inaugurate with a mural of his own for this first exhibit. To break ground in the basement, which sat for 30 years untouched, Escalante and Stecyk have invited Jon Swihart to share a collection of his portraits, aptly titled “The Selfie Show.”

In 1994 in San Francisco, Robert Williams, Craig Stecyk, Greg Escalante, Eric Swenson and Fausto Vitello founded Juxtapoz with the intent of fostering the art and culture of the underground. Since then, the magazine has grown to become not only the most definitive voice in the discussion of artists who toe the line between “high” and “low” culture, but also the best-selling art magazine in the world. Similar to the recent 20 Years Under the Influence of Juxtapoz at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, which was curated in part by Copro Gallery director Gary Pressman. (Escalante co-founded Copro Gallery in 1993 with Doug Nason.) The opening exhibition for Gregorio Escalante Gallery will take on subjects of subversive and popular street culture, tattoo art, printmaking, comics, psychedelic culture, fine art painting, and the entire breadth of this wide subculture of highbrow-lowbrow art.

Teaming with Charlie Jane, whose background sees her as Director of the BritWeek Los Angeles Visual Artist of the Year Awards program and sitting on the BritWeek Los Angeles Committee as well as representing artists in her own gallery and elsewhere in the UK, carries over a connection to the creative corporate world that benefits the experimental possibilities of the gallery with such prior clients as Nike, Virgin, and Disney. Artist and So Cal native Craig Stecyk helped write and produce the award-winning documentary Dogtown & Z Boys, and has work featured in the Smithsonian museum; he also helped shape the skate art world as we know it today.

Gregorio Escalante Gallery will feature its premiere exhibit at 978 Chung King Rd.
Los Angeles, CA 90012 on Saturday, September 5 from 7-11PM.

Selection of artists to be shown in Gregorio Escalante Gallery’s opening group show:

Robert Williams
Daniel Johnston
Norm Eastman
F Scott Hess
Jeff Soto
Odd Nerdrum
Edward Colver
Chris Burden
Ed Ruscha
John Baldessari
Sandow Birk
Gahan Wilson
Anthony Ausgang
Frank Kozik
Sonya Palencia
Natalia Fabia
Leslie Ditto
Alla Bartoshchuk
Ilene Segalove 

Eric Kurzbard

Jeff Gillette
Dan Quintana

Joshua Paskowitz
Kim Abeles
Corey Stein
Russell Crotty
Irving Norman
Ed “Big Daddy” Roth
Miran Kim
Peter Zokosky